Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Women's Half Marathon-Nashville Recap

Half Marathon #2= Check! It's hard to believe that I've completed 2 half marathon's this year. From a girl who hated to run and now I love to train and run! Anyways...The Recap:
This all started the day that Women's Running Magazine announced that Nashville was going to be a new location for their Half-Marathon. I immediately signed up for a discounted price, hoping to talk my friend, Heather, to do it with me. After some begging ;), she agreed and finally we were off to talk about training. To make a long story short, I got tendonitis in my foot at the beginning of the summer, so my training was put on the back burner. This really made me lose motivation, therefore I didn't train my best during the week but about 8 weeks out from the race, I focused on my weekend runs. So the day comes, September 25th, RACE DAY!!
We got up at 4:30 am, ate a Luna Bar and a Banana, drank lots of water, had my pre-race poop...(it's a must!!), and we were on the road. We got downtown around 5:45 or so and we got a parking spot pretty close to the country music hall of fame (start/finish).

This is what it looked like when we got to the start/finish. Heather and I had a warm up jog and a good stretch. We used the nasty port-a-potty's and headed up to corral 3.
The sun was starting to show itself when we were walking up to the corral. I wore a walmart danskin top, sports bra from TJMax, nike dri fit shorts, and drymax socks. I had my Fleet Feet Mizuno wave inspire 6's on and I was ready to roll! I also bought an ifitness double pouch belt (which I am going to review here in a couple posts) along with a fuel belt palm water bottle. I also sported the Women's Half Marathon official sweaty band, which was amazing!
My bestie and I headed to our corral! I LOVED that our bib's had our names on it, for the mere fact that strangers and volunteers from the race would cheer us on by name! It was great! For my recap of the course/how I did: The course was WAY harder than the Country Music Half course. Many more hills and tough hills close to the end. I didn't necessarily get the "runner's high" this time but I didn't hit "a wall" either, which I was very happy about. I was so glad I could be Heather's cheer leader and help her to keep motivated and not give up! I wanted her to finish this more than me! We tried out Gu for the first time the weekend before the race and only liked the chocolate....go figure that they advertised for it and didn't have it on the course. But I took the vanilla with major swigs of water and I really do think that it helped keep me going. We did about 4 power bar raspberry chews during the race, water and Gatorade and the gu. I really liked the live music but I thought there was going to be more bands according to the race video and all the music stops. It was so empowering to see all these women of all ages and sizes! We all had the same thing in common: We are strong, powerful women and we can do this!
Although I didn't beat my first time (3:10 at the CMM), I am very pleased with my time of 3:17 because of how hard the course was and that me and Heather finished this together!
YAY!!! We did it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cute finishers breakfast by publix and a cookie cafe :)
LOVED the metals and love the charm that I can wear on a necklace to remind me of all my accomplishments. I have created a monster out of Heather and we are addicted to Half's :) Our main goal is to do the Disney Princess Half in a couple years. We want to do the Country Music Half this spring and this one again next year!

6 comments:

  1. great review Tiffany! we mirrored each other...my 2nd half as well. I finished at 3:10 in the CMM half and 3:20 in this one...I wasn't trying to beat the 1st one, my goal was to just to just not be as sore as I was the 1st time and it worked! (Last time I was able to go the distance w/o a porta potty break, but this time i stopped, that set me back 4 minutes as well!) great job to you and Heather!~ Mary S.

    ps... I am addicted to half now as well, you are all trained up now why not do the 11/13 one here in Nashville, it is called "I Run for the Party"! :)

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  2. That is so great that you were able to run with your friend and finish together! I have yet to run a race that had my name on the bib, I want one!

    : )

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  3. nice job...having a friend by your side, makes all the difference. I too want to hit a Disney run!!

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  4. This blog is awesome full of useful information that i was in dire need of.

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  5. Hi Tiffany, I loved reading this blog! I just finished my first half marathon this fall and it just happened to be the Nashville Women's Half. Here is the link to my race experience, hope you enjoy reading mine as much I enjoyed reading yours :) http://theday2day-dawn.blogspot.com/2012/09/womens-half-marathon-nashville.html

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  6. BTW, my finish time was within 30(ish) secs of yours.

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